Anamorph

Detective Stan Aubray was the lead investigator on a series of gruesome murders where the victims were posed as macabre works of art and the killings credited to 'Uncle Eddie'.  When the killings stopped and the trail ran cold the police called a halt to the investigation and promoted Stan to Detective First Class for his work.  Now an alcoholic Stan is disturbed to find a body meticulously posed in a manner that suggests that 'Uncle Eddie' may be responsible.  The question on everyone's lips and especially Stan's mind is whether Uncle Eddie is back in the game or whether a deranged copycat killer is emulating his hero. 
 
Whenever a film of this nature crops up, comparisons with Se7en are inevitable and the tone and subject matter of Anamorph does nothing to distance itself from David Fincher's fine film.  Just as in Se7en the positioning of the victims' bodies connects each to one another and to a bigger picture which the killer intends the police to solve by deduction.  Just as John Doe targeted Detective Mills, the killer in Anamorph has targeted Detective Aubray who lectures on the Uncle Eddie case in particular and complicated psychological murders in general.
 

 
Burdened with a new partner and drinking on the sly, or so he thinks, Stan keeps in touch with a prostitute on the wagon (Clea DuVall) and an expert in art and antiquities (Peter Stormare), in the hope they may provide friendship or, more importantly, help in solving the case.  When they discover that the killer is using anamorphosis, an artistic technique where a seemingly meaningless image becomes whole when you view it from a certain perspective, they realise that they are up against someone smart, patient and well versed in artistic literature - he is no ordinary serial killer. 
 
Though the intelligent serial killer with a masterplan is hardly new either in film or literature it doesn't stop new additions from being gripping, involving and enjoyable.  There are elements of John Doe in the fanatical pursuit of a bigger picture to create something meaningful and the educated and patient element references Hannibal Lecter.  Anamorph isn't Se7en or Silence of the Lambs but is a smartly written, well executed and sympathetically acted film with a fine performance at the centre by Willem Dafoe.  At times it felt a little too cliché-ridden with the almost compulsory burnt-out cop, the well educated killer and the smart young sidekick who locks horns with the senior cop who's been around the case for too long. 
 

 
It isn't the greatest serial killer film ever made and there will be better ones to come, but it is an interesting watch with some carefully constructed murder scenes and there is certainly some depth to the writing that should have paid off better than it did in the dénouement.

The Disc

 
The Picture
A suitably dark and muted palette is presented very well with no grain, aliasing, moiré or other detritus to speak of.  Anamorph is nicely shot and edited with some good location shooting, costumes and set design. 
 
*The pictures contained in this review are for illustrative purposes only and do not reflect the image quality of the disc.*
 
The Sound
A fairly clear DD 5.1 soundtrack, but I found some of the gruffly delivered dialogue a little hard to make out, so switched to the stereo option which I found much sharper but still, at times, some of Dafoe's lines weren't as easy to hear as they could or should have been.  There are no subtitles to help out so you just have to concentrate and hang on every word. 
 

 
Final Thoughts
Anamorph is a pretty well realised film by H. S. Miller in only his second feature film and first for a major release.  It is the sort of film that is, and always was, destined for a straight-to-DVD release but I quite enjoyed it.  It's not as smart or accomplished as the best in the serial killer genre but it's a shame that the UK release is so completely vanilla, without the making of documentary that comes with the R1 release, or even subtitles, though the main menu is preceded by skippable trailers for [REC], W∆Z, and The Children.  It might be worth a rental or keeping your eye out when it appears on the movie channels unless you are feeling particularly flush and adventurous and feel like splashing out on the DVD.